


Breathing In, I Can Scarcely Feel

by StarkPanda



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Dark, Gen, London as a concept, Personification, aftermath of the Fall, kind of gorey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-13
Updated: 2012-01-13
Packaged: 2017-10-29 11:46:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/319564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarkPanda/pseuds/StarkPanda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the three years after the fall, Sherlock had nearly forgotten the taste of London air.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breathing In, I Can Scarcely Feel

With a sigh like breaking glass, she snaps each rib, stripping flesh from carcass, fingers flashing from scantily clad bones to over eager lips glistening with a heavy sheen of grease. Sherlock does not breathe, and still she crushes the air from his lungs, breathing it in, dust tinged as it is, in greedy gulps. He stares and the light reflecting in his eyes is as terrible as she. He had dreamt that she would be forgiving of his years away, though a memory of woman like her slicing ribbons of blood around his eyes and mouth said she'd never been merciful. He claws at his inner arm with broken nails. It is safe here in the alley way, the blind-spot where human refuse gathers safe from the red staring eye of Big Brother.

 _(There is evil here that never sleeps.)_

It feels safe, safer, but she is everywhere and Big Brother is a known variable where she can never be quantified. The scent of cigarettes never washes out and Sherlock's hands are shaking like they haven't in years. It isn't raining, but it isn't sunny either and Sherlock is just holding in screams that build with every passing cab, bus, oblivious pedestrian. He could slaughter them like pigs and wreath his city in their teeth while she played in the pooling blood.

She cracks a femur beside his ear, a reminder, and he startles like a thoroughbred, sneering at himself even as his nerves jangle and spark. The wood of the door is unchanged, unchanging, and Sherlock presses his whole self against it, his hands white against the grain, inhaling the flaking paint.

The temptation rears up, to let his city flay him open like wild caught game, so all his fluids and vital parts can be on display, spilling down the concrete steps, for when he lifts a trembling hand, eyes unable to see anything beyond the numbers and the door to 221B.


End file.
